Communities inland were getting hit hardest, with eastern Pennsylvania serving as the bull's-eye for the storm. West Milford, New Jersey, about 45 miles northwest of New York City, had received 15.5 inches of snow by Saturday night, while Plainfield, Massachusetts, had gotten 14.3 inches. New York City's Central Park set a record for both the date and the month of October with 1.3 inches of snow.

More than 2.3 million customers lost power from Maryland north through Massachusetts, and utilities were bringing in crews from other states to help restore it. More than half a million residents in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut were without power, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. By late Saturday, the storm had vacated most of Pennsylvania and was tracking northeast.

Throughout the region, officials had warned that the early storm would bring sticky snow on the heels of the week's warmer weather and could create dangerous conditions. New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts declared states of emergencies, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for 13 counties. At least three deaths have been blamed on the storm.

But instead of firing a 'big bazooka' to slay the beast of Greek national debt as George Osborne demanded last month at an IMF meeting in Washington the leaders popped off a pathetic peashooter. True, stock markets around the world were up dramatically after the Brussels accord.

But this is likely to be a temporary respite leading business and City economists suggest the accord is not worth the paper it's written on. One economist, Stuart Thomson of Ignis Asset Management, went as far as to declare it 'a massive confidence trick'.

Led by President Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel, euroland's leaders have developed a habit of issuing pompous communiques giving the immediate impression that enough has been done to resolve the crisis and to restore confidence in the region's economy. But when you examine the fine-print, you find very little has changed. Each element of the rescue package looks fragile under scrutiny. Perhaps the biggest unanswered question of all is how the greater fiscal and budgetary integration promised in Brussels by the 17 euroland members can ever be achieved.

A quick comparison of tax rates in different eurozone nations gives an indication of the difficulties. Ireland, for instance, has almost managed to pull itself out of the debt crisis by sticking with a super-low 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate that has attracted big American companies to the country - Google recently moved its European headquarters to Dublin for this reason.

In contrast, Germany's is a high-tax economy where some personal tax rates exceed 50 per cent. Then again, in other countries such as Italy and Greece, countless citizens 'forget' to pay taxes and tax fraud is almost an industry in itself. Binding together these very different attitudes towards taxation will be all but impossible. The idea of unyielding German tax inspectors arriving to inspect a Greek taverna or Italian pasta emporium is not likely to be welcomed - yet that is what closer integration implies.

So, forget the rhetoric. In reality, all that came out of Brussels this week was another sticking plaster. And it won't be strong enough to fix the gaping wound that is the euro crisis. Meanwhile, throughout Europe, prospects for output and jobs are deteriorating sharply as consumer confidence plummets, industrial output diminishes and exports are falling like a stone.

Hours after an all-night summit of euro governments ended, flaws began to emerge in a package that was billed as a "grand and comprehensive" solution to the European debt crisis. The concerns were led by Germany's powerful central bank, which expressed fears that a plan to leverage a 440 billion euros eurozone rescue fund to amass a "fire power" of 1 trillion euros, or 880 billion pounds, resembled the risky finance methods that triggered the crisis in 2008.

EU leaders are expected to sanction the establishment of a so-called special purpose investment vehicle, or SPIV, to be set up in the coming weeks. It is aimed at attracting investment from countries such as China and Brazil. Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank and a member of the European Central Bank, sounded the alarm over the plan to "leverage" the fund by a factor of four to five times without putting any new money into the pot.

He warned that the scheme could be hit by market turbulence with taxpayers left holding the bill for risky investments in Italian and Spanish bonds.

Mr Osborne said he would not allow the International Monetary Fund, which is partly bankrolled by British taxpayers, to provide money for the new euro bail-out fund. The announcement was a fillip to Conservative backbenchers who have demanded that the Government acts to claw back powers from Brussels.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that Tory MPs will meet next month to begin drawing up a detailed plan calling for the return of employment and social laws following the back-bench rebellion over a European referendum. Mr Osborne told MPs: "Britain will not be putting money into the bail-out fund either directly or through the IMF."

He ruled out IMF involvement amid indications that the international organisation may be asked to help bankroll the 1 trillion euros (880 million pounds) fund to lend money to beleaguered countries in the single currency. "The IMF exists to support countries, it does not exist to support currencies," Mr Osborne said. "The IMF contributing money to the eurozone bail-out fund, no; Britain contributing money to the eurozone bail-out fund, no. That is Britain's clear position."

Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, said Kirsty Jenkinson of the World Resources Institute, a Washington think tank. Water use is predicted to increase by 50 percent between 2007 and 2025 in developing countries and 18 percent in developed ones, with much of the increased use in the poorest countries with more and more people moving from rural areas to cities, Jenkinson said in a telephone interview.

Factor in the expected impacts of climate change this century - more severe floods, droughts and shifts from past precipitation patterns - that are likely to hit the poorest people first and worst "and we have a significant challenge on our hands," Jenkinson said.

Will there be enough water for everyone, especially if population continues to rise, as predicted, to 9 billion by mid-century? "There's a lot of water on Earth, so we probably won't run out," said Rob Renner, executive director of the Colorado-based Water Research Foundation. "The problem is that 97.5 percent of it is salty and... of the 2.5 percent that's fresh, two-thirds of that is frozen. So there's not a lot of fresh water to deal with in the world."

"The worst case scenario has been taken off the table for now, but we still haven't painted the optimistic picture. The optimistic picture is really how we take out the highs in the S&P, but I think there needs to be a catalyst for that," said Burt White, chief investment officer at LPL Financial.

"I don't think the bears have thrown in the towel yet. I still think there's a lot of things that can go wrong here. You still have a lot of pessimisn around the [European] plan. You still have a lot of pessimism around consumers. You still have a lot of pessimism around Washington. That keeps the fear balloon big..."

The German leader forced French President Nicolas Sarkozy to bend to her will on using the European rescue fund only as a last resort, ruled out an automatic crisis-fighting role for the European Central Bank and dragged banks back to the table to take greater losses on Greek debt. She even wrung further budget concessions out of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

"Merkel got what she wanted," Shada Islam, an analyst at the Friends of Europe policy-advisory group in Brussels, said by phone yesterday after the summit ended. "This has confirmed Germany's role as the make-or-break player not only in the euro- zone crisis but in European Union affairs beyond Europe."

Two years after the debt crisis came to light in Greece, Merkel is finally translating her status as leader of Europe's biggest economy and biggest contributor to euro-area bailouts into international clout.

Private banks holding Greek debt will accept a write-off of 50% of their returns. The move is expected to cut the nation's debt load to 120% of its GDP in 2020. Under current conditions, it would have grown to 180%.

The firepower of the main euro bailout fund - known as the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) - is to be boosted from the 440 billion euros set up earlier this year to 1 trillion euros. There is about 250 billion euros left available in the EFSF, which the summit statement said could be leveraged 4-5 times.

European banks will be required to raise about 106 billion euros in new capital by June 2012. It is hoped that this would help shield them against losses resulting from any government defaults and protect larger economies - like Italy and Spain - from the market turmoil.

It is thought China may pay about 70 billion euros ($100 billion) into the fund, which is expected to be boosted to 1 trillion euros. Meanwhile French President Nicolas Sarkozy said debt-ridden Greece's entry to the eurozone was a mistake. Greece was "not ready" when it joined in 2001, he said, adding that it could be rescued thanks to a new deal on the debt crisis.

European leaders worked into the early hours of Thursday in Brussels to secure an agreement aimed at preventing the crisis from spreading to larger eurozone economies. The deal triggered a worldwide shares rally.

The President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has said he believes China will invest in Europe only if there are incentives for it to do so. "I don't think that China will just come in as a white knight to try to provide money just to bail out Europeans," he told the BBC.

Exactly how far the signals have to go can make a difference in such trades. Alexander Wissner-Gross told the American Physical Society meeting that financial institutions are looking at ways to exploit the light-speed trick. Dr Wissner-Gross, of Harvard University, said that the latencies - essentially, the time delay for a signal to wing its way from one global financial centre to another - advantaged some locations for some trades and different locations for others.

There is a vast market for ever-faster fibre-optic cables to try to physically "get there faster" but Dr Wissner-Gross said that the purely technological approach to gaining an advantage was reaching a limit. Trades now travel at nearly 90% of the ultimate speed limit set by physics, the speed of light in the cables. Because there is a clear, physical advantage to the approach, Dr Wissner-Gross said that the first firm to try to exploit the effect will be at significant competitive advantage - until more firms follow suit.

Eurozone leaders sealed a three-part deal in the hope that the markets would be convinced there had been effective response to the crisis. Officials in Brussels said an accord had been reached with banks on a 50% write-off of Greek debt and they also approved a complex mechanism to boost the eurozone's main bailout fund to 1 trillion euro (880 billion pounds). The FTSE 100 index was 2 per cent higher this morning as investors welcomed the long-awaited action plan.

But only hours earlier, concerned about the consequences of a failure to deal with the crisis in the eurozone, German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the spectre of military conflict. "What is good for Europe is good for Germany," she said. "Another half century of peace and prosperity in Europe is not to be taken for granted. If the euro fails, Europe fails. We have a historical obligation: To protect by all means Europe's unification process begun by our forefathers after centuries of hatred and blood spill. None of us can foresee what the consequences would be if we were to fail."

Her comments surprised many observers who suggested that now was a time for cool heads if the euro crisis was to be resolved, and it would not help to raise the spectre of war. But British officials heading to Brussels for the chaotic crisis summit feared eurozone leaders had failed to scrabble together the "big bazooka" remedy needed to rescue the single currency, despite proposals for stitching together a trillion-plus euro rescue package.

One senior Tory in Brussels dismissed the plans, saying "Without addressing the fundamentals, it remains a sticking plaster on a gaping wound." Mr Osborne cautioned that it was now necessary to keep momentum up and deliver precise details on how the three-part agreement will work. And he insisted that Britain will not contribute money to the European Financial Stability Facility bailout fund or to any IMF package specifically targeted at the eurozone area.

The French are suddenly treating the labor market reforms of Germany's package of reforms known as Agenda 2010 as their blueprint. But they are also impressed by the social partnership that exists in Germany between employees and employers, and not just on the labor side of the equation. "The strong cooperation between labor unions and business helped companies to remain flexible during the crisis," says employer lobbyist Didier.

This admiration for the German approach is new. Only last year, Berlin had to listen to then French Finance Minister and current International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde tell them that German frugality was detrimental to consumption in neighboring countries. In the country of savoir-vivre, it was felt that German discipline was somehow small-minded. But now, according to a survey in the magazine Le Parisien, the French have more confidence in German Chancellor Angela Merkel than they do in President Sarkozy.

"Europe is a constant beauty pageant, and Germany has just won," says Jean-Paul Fitoussi, an economist at the OFCE economic institute and an advisor to the prime minister. But he also warns: "If we try to improve our competitiveness by taking the same approach as Germany, it will be at the expense of other countries in Europe." THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY OUT OF THE CRISIS FOR EVERYONE, SAYS FITOUSSI: MORE EUROPE.

The 84-year-old pontiff stood on the platform as aides pushed it up the central aisle, which is about 100 metres (yards) long. Wearing green vestments, he blessed the faithful as he made his way up then celebrated Mass from the main altar. He appeared to be in good health.

"This is just not to tire him," chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said. "Nothing else should be read into the general state of his health, which is good." The platform, which has three steps and brass handles, was built to transport the late Pope John Paul during the last five years of his life.

The European Financial Stability Facility will be worth about $1.4 trillion after European leaders agreed to leverage existing guarantees by as much as five times, Sarkozy said at a briefing in Brussels at 4 a.m. local time. The presidents will speak about noon Brussels time and Chinese support will be welcomed, he said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has signaled willingness to aid the European Union as financial turmoil within the region threatens to crush export demand in China's biggest market. The expansion of the rescue fund and a deal for bondholders to take 50 percent losses on Greek debt may help Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to convince the world that Europe is getting to grips with the crisis.

"China will need time to evaluate this plan very carefully," said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist for Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. "What worries China is that there is so much disagreement among European policy makers. It doesn't want to be seen spending money on a plan that even Europeans don't want to support."

Sarkozy and Hu's conversation comes a day before a planned visit to Beijing by Klaus Regling, chief executive officer of the EFSF, to court investors. China has the world's largest foreign currency reserves at more than $3.2 trillion.

Cartoons have sprung up depicting the European Union's "troika" as ferocious soldiers in World War Two German uniforms, and some Greeks are beginning to resent the German tourists flocking their ancient sites.

The staff cartoonist for the liberal daily Eleftherotypia has drawn dozens of such cartoons in recent months, often showing Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos giving the Nazi salute "Sieg Heil" (Hail Victory) to a soldier.

"I used the German uniforms symbolically," cartoonist Stathis Stavropoulos told Reuters through an interpreter.

"They show that what Germany did not manage with weapons during World War Two, it is now trying to do through economic means," he said.